1. Technical Field
The embodiments herein relate generally to health management of individuals and, more particularly to, a health management system that provides health monitoring and imparts health-related knowledge to individuals.
2. Description of the Related Art
Health management of individuals and patients is now no longer confined to physicians' clinics or hospitals. With the use of the Internet and wireless technology, health conditions of individuals and patients may be monitored and controlled remotely. A typical health management system of today's age involves healthcare providers, who arrange various remote therapeutic programs for monitoring and controlling a patient's ill health conditions.
Various patients may have a wide variety of medical needs. Based on these needs the healthcare providers need to suggest appropriate therapy to the patients for achieving a cure or maintaining patient's condition at a controlled level. For example, a patient suffering from diabetes may need to be guided through a diabetes care regimen for maintaining his/her blood glucose level. Since diet, exercise, and medication all have major effects on a patient's blood glucose levels, information regarding the blood glucose level and other important health parameters such as blood pressure and weight of the diabetics should be recorded along with the timestamp information (i.e., date and time) of the recording. This information may be then forwarded to the healthcare providers of that diabetic care regimen and based on the recorded information, the care provider may suggest necessary actions to the patients. This helps a person with diabetes to closely monitor and manage hisser condition.
Such a health management system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,544,649, the complete disclosure of which, in its entirety, is herein incorporated by reference, and which describes an ambulatory (in the home) patient health monitoring system wherein the patient is monitored by a healthcare worker at a central station, while the patient is at a remote location. The patient may be a person having a specific medical condition being monitored or may be an elderly person desiring general medical surveillance in the home environment. Cameras are provided at the patient's remote location and at the central station such that the patient and the healthcare worker are in interactive visual and audio communication. A communications network such as an interactive cable television is used for this purpose. Various medical condition sensing and monitoring equipment are placed in the patient's home, depending on the particular medical needs of the patient. The patient's medical condition is measured or sensed in the home and the resulting data is transmitted to the central station for analysis and display. The healthcare worker then is placed into interactive visual communication with the patient concerning the patient's general well being, as well as the patient's medical condition. Thus, the healthcare worker can make “home visits” electronically, twenty-four hours a day.
Although U.S. Pat. No. 5,544,649 patent describes monitoring of patients' health at their respective homes, it and other systems like it are generally lacking as it relates to educating patients in a personalized manner in order to empower patients to do more for themselves. Interactive video communications also tend to rely on the patient and care provider to schedule a video visit and thus need to coordinate their schedules to be on the line at the same time. The problem is the shortage of healthcare providers who can deliver personalized education and care even when telehealth systems are in place.
Other home health management systems that seek to educate and monitor patients at home generally have limited ability to store and serve appropriate content to meet the wide range of individualized needs that exist in the patient population served, providing content that is general or one-size-fits-all. When such content is personalized, it is generally limited to text messaging and is rich multimedia content which is far to expensive and difficult to personalize using currently available methods.
Certain disease management programs send patients videos and educational materials via mail and follow-up by telephone to ascertain and confirm comprehension. However, such disease management programs are imprecise in their responsiveness to patient needs. Further, certain web sites also exist with a wide variety of patient educational content, however these web sites are typically not well adapted to give patients convenient and appropriate television quality video content in their own homes. In view of the foregoing, an improved remote-monitoring system for educating or imparting knowledge to patients with respect to their diseases, is needed.